Skylar Diggins dominates as Irish winning streak hits 29 games

Skylar Diggins showed she may have no peer, especially at this time of the year.

The Notre Dame point guard scored 22 of her 27 points by halftime Sunday and became the school's career scoring, leading the top-seeded Fighting Irish to a 93-63 victory against Kansas in the semifinals of the Norfolk Regional.

And Diggins, perhaps spurred on by talk the Norfolk Regional was full of great point guards, made it look easy, adding nine assists and three steals, and scoring nine straight during a 16-2 first-half run that put the Irish (34-1) ahead to stay.

The victory was the 29th in a row for Notre Dame, and left the Irish one victory shy of a third consecutive trip to the Final Four. They have lost in the title game each of the last two years.

Carolyn Davis led the upstart Jayhawks (20-14) with 25 points on 11-for-17 shooting, but the second No. 12 seed ever to get this far in the women's tournament since the seeding format began in 1994 didn't stick around long.

Notre Dame led 40-27 at halftime and started the second half with a 22-9 run.

The Jayhawks' Angel Goodrich had seven points and 12 assists, but her head-to-head duel with Diggins never materialized. When Goodrich, A senior like Diggins, finally scored with 5:48 left in the first half, Diggins already had 16 points and her team was about to make another run before halftime.

It came in the final 4:30 of the half, a 10-2 burst capped by two 3-pointers by Diggins.

Monica Engelman added 10 points for Kansas, but on just 4 of 16 shooting.

The Irish trailed 15-11 when Lloyd made a 3-pointer with 14:37 to go and then Diggins took over. She hit a 16-footer, a 17-footer, a 3-pointer and then had a steal and layup, making it 23-15. After Davis' stickback for the Jayhawks, Ariel Braker scored inside and Diggins did, too, posting up Goodrich.

The 16-2 run gave the Fighting Irish a 27-17 lead, and the spread stayed about the same until late in the half when Diggins hit a 3-pointer, then followed a turnover with another 3 from the right side.